Smart, full of curveballs, and perfect for the beach.
Having grown up in Sag Harbor, a historic Long Island town dependent on summer tourism, Emma Mapson thrives on hard work. But when a near stranger bequeaths his multimillion dollar estate to her daughter, Emma’s world spins out of control.
Years of long shifts at The American Hotel left Emma with little time for her 14-year-old daughter, Penny, who suffers from OCD and anxiety. Penny’s absentee father, Mark, who divorced Emma to pursue his dreams of acting and producing, hasn’t helped much; even his child support payments are late. Luckily for Emma, they have Angus, an elderly neighbor who moved in with them after the death of his wife. Luckily for Penny, she has Henry Wyatt, an artist who fled the New York scene for serenity in Sag Harbor and who has taken her under his wing, teaching her to draw while she teaches him about graphic novels. When Henry dies unexpectedly, he inexplicably leaves Windsong, his gorgeous house full of priceless artwork, to Penny, not his longtime manager and estranged best friend, Bea Winstead. And Bea is angry. She sweeps into town with her reluctant assistant, Kyle, who seems more interested in Emma and ship renovation than Bea’s crusade. While threatening Emma with a lawsuit, Bea illegally takes up residence in Windsong. She soon discovers, however, that Henry had been giving his drawings away to the residents of Sag Harbor, and those drawings might just tell a story explaining why Henry left Windsong to the wrong person. Brenner (The Husband Hour, 2018, etc.) skillfully ratchets up the tension as Bea searches for answers and the Mapsons struggle to gain control of not only the estate, but also Penny’s OCD. And then Mark shows up, ready to fight dirty for custody and money.
Smart, full of curveballs, and perfect for the beach.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-47679-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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